Identity:

Horace Jee or Gee was a musician and JW's occasional secretary. He was possibly the brother of Ada Louisa Jee, of whom JW was very fond, and the son of the broker Audley Horace Jee and his wife Louisa, née Livesey, of Liverpool.

Life:

JW met Jee through the Leylands. He used to occasionally play piano in JW's studio. Alan Cole records one of JW's dinners on 6 January 1876, at which Jee was present. Cole described him as 'a weak hanger on of J.W.' (#13132). In 1876 JW mentioned to Cole a picture by Jee, but no such picture has been traced (#07889). In the 1870s Jee was living at 2 Lindsay Row.

Bibliography:

Fennell, Jr., Francis L. (ed.), The Rossetti-Leyland Letters: The Correspondence of an Artist and his Patron, Ohio, 1978, pp. 24, 32; Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 143.